The IT Crowd

This is the "hello world" post for a new segment of thought on the unlocking life blog. We have called this particular weblog* Zero Marginal Cost, and here's what you can expect.

1. It's free to you, so quite literally, *zero* marginal cost
2. We will discuss technology, with an eye to the future and what to expect

Many of the rapid changes in our world today have been driven by technology. It may seem to you that the pace of change keeps accelerating, that new things are happening so quickly that it's difficult to keep up with. If that's what you think, let me assure you, YOU'RE RIGHT.

There are some pretty straightforward reasons why we see things changing so rapidly. This blog will explore the underlying causes, ponder the effects, and continually ask the question "how will that affect us in the future?".

You may still be wondering what any of that has to do with a somewhat esoteric economic notion like marginal costs. Is this a production planning and macro-economics course, or what? My answer to that question would be no, don't worry. That would put me to sleep too.

The goal here is to look at technology and discuss it in plain English. Hopefully there will be humor. Occasionally there will be long dissertations that will take a while to read. The underlying theme of "how will that affect us in the future?", however, is the motivation for the title. The notion that the internet and all of its related infrastructure have created an environment where many of the goods and services that were scarce in the past are now produced at nearly (or actually) zero cost is quite well established. This effect of this sudden abundance is also profoundly important.

How did this happen? Will it continue? What else will be turned upside down? What will be valuable in the future? How will I be able to survive?

Stay tuned - that's where we're going.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

* since I'm pre-disposed to footnote things, please note that I'll attempt to highlight acronyms and lingo with the assumption that not everyone knows some of the things that others take for granted. The term "blog" is a clumsy concatenation and shortening of the original term for the concept of online journaling. When it first started becoming a popular thing to do, those online journals were sometimes known as a "web log" which got concatenated to weblog which was truncated to blog. Fast-forward to today, and being a "blogger" is actually a profession. Weird. Background info